Sorry
to disoblige, but principles are principles."
Dora perceptibly pouted. Mrs Milburn created a diversion
with green-gage preserves. Under cover of it Hesketh
asked, "Is he a great friend of yours?"
"One of my very greatest," Dora replied. "I know he'll
expect Father to vote for him. It makes it awfully
embarrassing for me."
"Oh, I fancy he'll understand!" said Hesketh, easily.
"Political convictions are serious things, you know.
Friendship isn't supposed to interfere with them. I
wonder," he went on, meditatively, "whether I could be
of any use to Murchison. Now that I've made up my mind
to stop till after Christmas I'll be on hand for the
fight. I've had some experience. I used to canvass now
and then from Oxford; it was always a tremendous lark."
"Oh, Mr Hesketh, DO! Really and truly he is one of my
oldest friends, and I should love to see him get in. I
know his sister, too. They're a very clever family. Quite
self-made, you know, but highly respected. Promise me
you will."
"I promise with pleasure. And I wish it were something
it would give me more trouble to perform. I like Murchison,"
said Hesketh.
All this transpiring while they were supposed to be eating
green-gage preserves, and Mrs Milburn and Miss Filkin
endeavoured to engage the head of the house in the kind
of easy allusion to affairs of the moment to which Mr
Hesketh would be accustomed as a form of conversation--the
accident to the German Empress, the marriage of one of
the Rothschilds.
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